All souped up: The best in local stews

All souped upFew things take the chill off your bones like hot soup. And when you want to feed your hunger as well as your soul, there’s its heartier sibling, stew. These restaurants are ladling up some of the tastiest bowlfuls of warmth and comfort around.

Petit Pois

The French onion soup at Petit Pois is packed with sweet, tender onions in a bay leaf-laced beef broth, but it’s the crusty baguette topped with browned gruyère cheese that takes the crown.

At l’etoile, the apple sweet potato soup is a treat of sweet, savory, spicy, creamy and velvety. An even bigger treat? Relay Foods has started carrying it, so you can enjoy a bowl from the comfort of your own sofa and in fuzzy slippers too.

Rapture turns the classic chicken pot pie vegetarian with a result no less satisfying. Thick chunks of onions, carrots and potatoes in a flavorful truffle gravy share the bowl beneath an herbed puff-pastry crust.

Revolutionary Soup never disappoints, especially if you choose its lamb curry with potatoes, lentils and spinach. Served over organic brown rice and anointed with yogurt, scallions and cilantro, it’s a complete meal.

Bowled overIf you insist on drinking that last bit of soup from the bowl, you might as well lift something stylish to your lips. We recommend this set of colorful dishes from Anthropologie. A set of six costs $30, and will be a bright addition to your table.

Can do!Craving a great soup but didn’t plan ahead? La Guadalupana Mexican grocery, next to Aqui es Mexico on Carlton Avenue, carries a selection of Mexican and Salvadoran soups and stews to keep on hand for such an occasion. There’s a comforting caldo de pollo —chicken soup with flecks of cilantro that just needs a little squeeze of lime to really shine. Pork-and-purple-hominy pozole is classic Mexican comfort food. Gussy it up with a traditional sprinkle of chopped radish, cabbage and oregano. Pork-and-green-chile verde is great on its own with a sprinkle of cheese, but also does admirable double duty as a sauce for bean-and-cheese enchiladas.

Too many cervezas the night before? Hot and spicy Menudo, made with beef tripe and hominy, is a classic hangover remedy. For the truly adventurous, Salvadoran Sopa de Garroba—iguana soup, for the uninitiated—promises both aphrodisiac effects and natural energy.—Meredith Barnes

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